Keeping It Fresh

I know, I know.  It's been FOREVER since I last wrote.  I blame busy school schedules (GRE and exams and finals for two classes in summer school is killer) and then I enjoyed a nice vacation in Libertyville last week :)

To keep you all updated, I have not been slacking off in my efforts to getting fit and healthy.  Since my last entry, I have actually started a new diet and a new workout to try and keep things fresh for not only my mind, but my body as well.

I like to read a lot of articles from Men's Health Magazine/online website to look for new ideas about things.  A few weeks ago, I was reading about the top 25 best beach bodies for males.  I know, it sounds pathetic, but there was actually some good information to read about guys who share what they do and clearly see results.  One of the guys was Ryan Reynolds, and there was a link to his diet.  I liked the simplicity of it and decided to pick up one that is similar.  According to the article he lost a third of his body fat and gained 20 pounds of muscle.  While I'm not looking to gain a lot of weight, I have recently found out it is very beneficial to build muscle in your weight loss efforts.  The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn AFTER your workout.

As far as my workout goes, I have picked up on this one.  Again, I like it for it's simplicity and it's short length of 6 weeks.  I understand that where my body is at right now, I'm not going to end the 6 weeks with visible rock hard abs.  What I do know is that it's a good workout and I can see results already.  I'm currently in the middle of the 4th week and I'm feeling great.  I've read that circuit training and sprint interval training is highly recommended for weight loss.

The biggest thing I've learned in the past few weeks that really sparked me taking on this diet and workout is the fact that in order to see visual evidence quicker, you have to build muscle while you lose fat, otherwise you just look soft and mushy.  Trust me, I've been there.  In the past I've strictly done cardio and cut calories and I did lose weight.  But I got down to 175 pounds twice (from starting at 205 and 210 two different times) and though my clothes fit better, I didn't look a whole lot different to myself.

So, one of the tools I recently purchased was a body fat percentage/BMI reader.  The best part was that it was about $30 on Amazon.  I am VERY excited about this tool, as I can now gage the progress on my FAT loss, not just weight loss.